Beauty and the Beast
by R.Noseworthy
Summary: L will do anything to save his father, even sacrifice his heart to a monster. Kira's madness warped his mind and body- can he solve a riddle which promises salvation with a shinigami's voice in his ear? Or will L be lost too? AU: Original story, DN characters, inspired by Beauty and the Beast. Pairings: LightxL, MattxMello. Warnings: slash, violence, character death/abuse. WIP.


A/N: Greetings, lovelies. I won't say too much right now, so check out the A/N at the bottom of this chapter if you're looking for a more thorough introduction to this story.

WARNINGS for this chapter: Graphic violence/gore, character abuse/death. (Please bear with me.)

BETA: J. Noseworthy

DISCLAIMER: I am making no money from writing this, and I don't own the fairytale/story/movie 'Beauty and the Beast', Marilyn Manson/his music or 'Death Note'. If I did, then, well, _this_...

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Beauty and the Beast

Prologue- **Devour**

_"You're not crying, this is blood all over me._

_You're not crying, this is blood all over me._

_And I'll love you, if you'll let me._

_And I'll love you, if you won't make me starve."_

_ -Marilyn Manson, 'Devour'_

* * *

I sit alone in the dark and try to drown it out. My hands are pressed tight over ears that feel foreign under my fingers. My claws dig deep furrows into the flesh of my face and neck and arms. My blood spills out; black and thin and ghostly.

I can remember when it ran red and hot, but the memory feels far away.

I need you.

My body is bent and twisted into shapes as unnatural as my existence. I am hunched and curled, tangled into the sheets of what could have been our bed. It feels cold.

So does everything.

I want you.

I feel like I am dying. But that's not right. I feel like I am Death.

It's too late for us now. I can drown it out no longer. Every fibre of my being is screaming for you. It's compulsion; terrible all-encompassing, hungry. I am consumed.

I have to have you.

My mind fills with the sound of pages being turned rapidly.

In a sudden frenzy I rip myself free of the constricting sheets and lurch to my feet. My bones creak and crack under the sudden pressure of my weight and a scream is torn from my throat. It is not my first, nor last, but another of many. I have delayed this far too long.

My bedroom is full of dark shadows, and images of ink-strokes on paper dance behind my eyes.

I think it is too late for us now.

On the table to my left rests two things. I put them there earlier, I think. One of them is a slim black notebook. Its pages are delicate and fragile. Once they were pure, pristine, white, but they have been sullied by my hands and are now covered in my desperate scrawl.

All but one.

One last, beautifully deadly blank page.

I sweep the book angrily onto the floor.

Left on the table is a knife. I wrap my fingers around the handle and wrench the blade free from where it was stuck, embedded in the wood. The knife is beautiful in its own way. A sharper, shinier death for you, Beloved. It weighs heavy in my hand as I stagger from the room.

My feet walk the path to your door without my guidance. Driven by the desire that throbs in every beat of my heart, I am drawn to you like a moth to brilliant light. I need to love you and kill you and devour you until you are broken beyond belief. My Beloved, my Beauty...

I push open the door to your cell.

The darkness inside is pierced by bright light from the doorway where I stand silhouetted. This page drips black with ink I spilled in a rage. You lift your hand to shield yourself from the sudden brightness and it covers your pretty face. That won't do. Not at all.

In a few short steps I have grabbed your arms and jerked them down. Now I can see your beautiful eyes, blinking up at me as I stare down at you.

I devour the sight of you. So pretty...

Your bone-structure dwells delicate underneath fragile snow-white skin. All that mars your complexion are ink bruises I have left there- on your face and around your neck; smudged fingerprints on the page. They create the perfect frame for your big black eyes. They look terrified; full of dark shadows and tears. Prettyprettypretty. I release your arms to tangle my taloned fingers in your ebony hair and pull you close.

"You are Beauty itself, my Beloved," I croon.

"And you are a Beast!" you hiss, before spitting in my face.

I lurch back and snarl before allowing my hand to crack across your face. You cry out and slump pitifully to the floor where I drop you. Dimly, I am aware that your pain should stir something in me. Should I feel pain? Pity? Perhaps. But there is nothing but emptiness and anger.

I am too far gone. It's too late for us, my Beauty. This is the end for us.

I will give you one last chance.

"Have you rethought your decision?" I ask in a low voice as I slowly drop to my knees beside you. I am trying not to seem threatening.

I watch you curl in on yourself. The chains that bind you to the wall of your cell clink softly, providing your only response. I give you a moment, no more, before my temper snaps and I lash out. My fist sinks into your stomach and you give an agonised yelp which quickly sinks into low whimpers.

"ANSWER ME!" I yell.

Just as suddenly as I snapped, you snap too. We are as alike as fire and flame, my Beauty.

"There is no choice!" you scream to me in a voice made of desperation and despair. "You're a monster! You don't feel love- all you're capable of is pain and fear and DEATH! I could never love you!"

"You could if you chose to!" I scream back. Please. Please. Please...

You laugh; hollow, empty. "I would choose Nothingness over you."

My lip curls back over snarling, pointed teeth. "So be it," I growl. My voice fills the frozen room. Even to my own ears it sounds heavy with insanity. My eyes find yours and fix there. I am determined to savour every last detail of this, your final moment. So. Pretty.

My fingers entwine themselves back into your hair and I wrench you forward once more. Our faces are mere inches apart now. I can see the defiance flare in your eyes for a searing instant; before I extinguish it when I press the sharp knife-edge against your skin. I don't think you had noticed it, so heavy in my hand, before this moment. You open your mouth to scream or plead or say goodbye maybe, but the sound dies the instant I sink the blade into your stomach. You jerk in my arms, once, twice, your eyes alight with violent terror. I hold you tightly. You made your choice. I wish I was sorry.

I twist the blade and pull it sideways, opening a long gash right across your middle. I rip away from the wound briefly before sinking back in, this time dragging the edge upwards and slicing apart the skin down the centre of your chest. I pull the knife out smoothly before dropping it in a clatter against the stone floor. My eyes don't waver from your dying stare.

My claws tear away the edges of your skin as I shove them inside of you. Your entire body shudders violently when the faltering expansions of your lungs push my hand against the inside of your ribcage. I shred through, and the sound of your frenzied breath is replaced by a sickening gurgle as blood floods your throat and pours out from between your lips. Your blood runs red and hot over my slippery hand plunging down through flesh and organ. Searching. Slashing. Seeking. Your eyes widen slightly at the exact moment when my fingers find their target. They wrap gently around your heart and with a final violent twist I tear it from your body. As I clutch this prize to my chest one arm remains wrapped around your plundered corpse. I feel it as you jerk again one final time before becoming still.

You are dead, my Beloved.

And now I can finally allow my eyes to drop from your dying stare to see what I have stolen from you. Your heart. Warped and mangled in my bloody grasp.

It is broken.

I tip my head back and scream. The sound is raw and primal; full of pain and rage and endless, endless hunger. From behind me, I hear dry laughter.

"Hyuk. Hyuk. Hyuk."

I do not bother to turn and look. I know who that laugh belongs to.

"I thought this was the one," I whisper. My Beauty...

"Yeah me too kiddo." I hear a slow flapping of wings and feel his presence settle beside me. "But I guess not."

I say nothing.

"Or maybe you were right," he says thoughtfully. "Only you went about this in the wrong way."

I turn to look at him. His face is as familiar to me by now as my own reflection. His skin is paler than death. His hair is as dark as the feathers of his wings. His mouth is pulled into a rictus grin and filled with rows of pointed teeth. His eyes are red.

Just like mine.

"Have you got the next one?" I whisper hoarsely.

His grin spreads wider and he nods. "Yep. Hyuk. Hyuk. Hyuk. He's a right beauty too."

I nod, looking distractedly down and the body in front of me. I still clutch your heart against me in a mad grip. It's warm. And sticky wet. And such a lovely, deep red...

"You ready for this to be over kiddo?"

I say nothing. He already knows my answer.

"Alrighty then," he moves forward, and something black appears in my vision. "You know whatcha gotta do."

I flinch once, before allowing your heart to finally slip free from between my fingers and thud down softly inside your ravaged chest cavity. I reach out my empty hands and he presses the notebook into my grasp. I open it to the last page. The last beautiful, pristine, deadly blank page. My hands are painted with your blood. I use it to write.

Names blossom in congealing red ink under my clawed fingertips. Random, meaningless names and their matching faces swim behind my eyes. People I know. People I hate. People I've seen in-passing on the street. Right now they are all seizing their chests and crashing to the ground in a flood of senseless death. I cannot bring myself to care. I spare no thoughts for them. My last link to their kind lies crumpled at my feet, and I could barely summon an emotion for you, even in your dying throes.

I stop. The page is full.

For forty full seconds I wait. And then I begin to change.

The transformation is agonising, excruciating. In a desperate moment of blind terror my eyes seek out yours; and again I find myself incapable of looking away. My bones break apart, stretch, elongate and then fit themselves together again in new patterns. My flesh melts and finds a new insubstantial form. My ghostly black blood floods freely from my eyes, ears, mouth and nose until my body is empty of it. I won't need it anymore.

I am writhing on the ground, holding the notebook tight against me and screaming, screaming, screaming. My wings force themselves free from inside my back. New, needle-point teeth burst loose from my gums and the old ones drop to the floor is a grisly clattering rain. My clawed-fingers elongate, becoming sharper and stronger.

The notebook is my anchor. My hands freeze around it, and slowly its cold spreads upwards. After causing decades worth of violent deaths, the ink slips free from the pages and runs in a black wave across my skin. Cooling, soothing, healing. My screams fade into whimpers. The notebook remains in my hands; once again, blank pristine and beautifully deadly. Empty paper; waiting and wanting to begin anew. When the last drop of ink has disappeared, so does the looming spectre of my malicious laughing ever-present companion. I do not notice his departure. His turn is done now. Mine begins.

Throughout it all my eyes remain fixed on yours. My Beloved, a strange thought occurs to me in my pain and my terror. With your perfect white skin and your pitch-black hair you yourself resemble the notebook that has trapped my being for so long. The blood splattered across your face and body could be crimson ink.

You are my Death Note. My curse. My salvation. I see it all so clearly. It is my last rational thought, and it brings me great comfort as I lay dying on the floor. I think I love you more truly then, in my final moment, then I ever could before. My heart spasms in my chest and I die.

When my eyes open again, all they see is red.

* * *

_"You are Beauty itself, my Beloved."_

_"And you are a Beast."_

* * *

A/N: So, yeah... look at what my brain did when I made it watch the classic Disney 'Beauty and the Beast' with my little sister! Look at it! ...Good times.

~Please read!~ If you did not like the above chapter because of it's tone, I implore you to stick around for at least one more! I realise that I started on a pretty disturbing note- with some dark and violent imagery. I made a deliberate effort to portray the disturbed and murder-y mind of our fair hero above without 'glorifying the gore' more than I needed to, but I don't know how well that came across (feel free to comment!) This tone will not carry through so explicitly to the rest of the story. To get a better grasp of where I am going with this, have a look at chapter one- but note that I will be sticking with the above themes and concepts (death, violence, abuse, etc) throughout; so if that's not your thing, exit stage right. I am also not writing 'dark', 'edgy', torture-porn, so if that is your thing, exit stage left. I am going for an intelligent piece, with character development and emotions and stuff. Yeah.

On with the show!

The **** is this? This is an AU Death Note fanfic. I am taking the deranged geniuses we know and love and playing with them in a universe where the rules of the classic tale 'Beauty and the Beast' would make sense. As such, I will be changing the rules of the Death Note universe- particularly concerning the notebooks, shinigami and Kira. All will be revealed. This is also a yaoi fanfiction; pairings include Light/KiraxL, MattxMello and I'll probably mess around a bit with B along the way.

The **** are you? I am Reeah Noseworthy (you may remember me from such fanfictions as 'Dragons Among Serpents' by ) nineteen year old, female, Australian, uni student. I have been writing for ages but have never actually got around to finishing/publishing anything fanfic-wise- expect that to change. This is my first story on ! I am happy to answer any questions, clear up any confusion you have about this story, or generally chat about things- just ask me in a review or PM.


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